There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job;
and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed
evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His
substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five
hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great
household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. And
his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and
called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so,
when the days of their feasting was gone about, that Job sent and sanctified
them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings
according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons
have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Job 1:1-5

God chose a family in the patriarchal age, of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, to use as an example of a typical Jewish family. They knew
that some day God would provide a sacrifice, and they looked forward and
trusted in that future sacrifice in the same way that we look back and trust
in that past sacrifice. With that in mind, follow this logic.

The New Testament church is supposed to be a family. I
often say at the beginning of a service at the First Baptist Church,
"Welcome to our thrice weekly family reunion." Every Sunday morning and
Sunday night we have another family reunion. That is a scriptural term
because it is in keeping with the fact that the church is a family.

1. The book of Job is a perfect example of the Old
Testament family.

2. The book of Job is a perfect example of the OldTestament church.

There was
an Old Testament church. The word church means, a called-out
assembly. In the seventh chapter of Acts, the Israelites were called out
to assemble in the wilderness and were called the church in the
wilderness. The New Testament church was not founded in the Old
Testament, but there was an Old Testament assembly. That Old Testament
assembly was the family. I am not referring to the little unit, of mom, dad,
and the children. I am referring to an extended family that included
grandparents, great-grandparents, as well as mom, dad and, children. The
church unit of the Old Testament was the family.

When Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, there were three
things involved in that birthright, including the right to the priesthood of
the family. The worship or public gathering of the Old Testament was
the family.

3. Notice what size these families were.

Job had ten children, which in those days was really not
that large of a family, but I will use it as the average size of a family.

If each of Job's children had ten children, there would
have been a total of one hundred.

If each of them had ten children, there would have been
one thousand.

If each of them had ten children, there would have been
ten thousand.

If each of them had ten children, there would have been
one hundred thousand.

That is five generations. A Bible generation is usually
considered to be thirty-five years. Five generations would have been 175. In
175 years there would have been 111,111 people in that extended family. In
the Old Testament patriarchal days, a man who died at 175 was just a boy.
The average man lived much longer than that. For this example we will assume
that everybody died at 175 years of age. That means that each family
consisted of over 100,000 people. I am referring to the extended family.

Each of these families formed the Old Testament unit of a
church or a called-out assembly. They were the worship unit. They assembled
for sacrifices and worship to God.

4. The oldest or firstborn son was in charge.

The other firstborn sons in all the individual family
units assisted him. In eachfamily the oldest son held the priestly rights in his own
family.

5. Soul winning was within
the family.

Cities were notpopular in those days. Most people lived in the country. A
family of 100,000 people covered a large amount of land. Many of the
children were not going to believe. Soul winning was to be within the
family. They had plenty of prospects. One family could have been larger than
the city of Hammond, Indiana. They had no cars or buses, so they had to walk
or go on a beast of burden to get to each other. They would explain to the
family members who did not believe that one day God was going to send a
sacrifice, and that sacrifice was going to pay the penalty for their sins.
The lambs, bullocks, turtledoves, pigeons, doves and goats were offered
according to God's sacrifice. God one day would provide Himself as a
sacrifice.

God told them audibly that by faith Abel believed, and
they passed this story down from generation to generation. Every person had
to believe in the coming Messiah to be saved, just as we must believe in the
Messiah Who has already come. Somebody had to tell them these things, but
there were some who would not listen. Some people would not even come to the
assembly, just as we have family members who will not come to church. Those
people were human beings also. They had to reach them, so there was Old
Testament soul winning. Somebody had to tell every person in those days
about the Gospel.

I reject the heresy that there is one Gospel in the Old
Testament and another in the New Testament. Anybody who goes to Heaven will
get there by faith in Jesus Christ. God uses human instruments to get us
saved. Most of those human instruments are through the local New Testament
church. Likewise, most of the instruments that got them saved were through
the Old Testament assembly.

When the Jews came to the promised land, God gave them
certain places to live. God not only gave certain land for the tribes, but
for their families. Each family was given a certain job in the tabernacle
and lived in a certain place. They may have gone many miles before they
found somebody who was not in their own extended family. (The Mennonites and
Amish have done much the same thing. They settle by families.) It was a
matter of geography, or of transportation. They could not get to somebody
else's family to go soul winning because they lived too far away. They went
to their own relatives and witnessed to them.

6. The entire life was built around the family.

Thisgroup of people or relatives assembled on a regular basis
for worship, but their social life was also built around this extended
family unit. Their business life was together. Their education was together.

7. The family was the city.
They did not live in cities; the family was the unit of organization,
especially spiritually.

Something happened.

1. Cities came.

Cities have
been the destruction of civilization. When the cities came, it broke down
the family life.

2. Families scattered.

They
went to cities. We are a perfect example in America today. We have two
daughters who live a thousand miles from us, and a son who lives five
hundred miles away. Many families have grown children scattered across the
country.

3. Many families lived near each other.

This caused the building of cities. With the coming of
cities, people migrated together and many different families or portions of
families lived together in the cities.

4. They started
synagogues.

A synagogue was not a patriarchal
term. It came about because of cities. Any time ten responsible Jewish men
were together, they were allowed to start a synagogue. These were not the
same family members. God still wanted His people together.

5. The synagogue became
what the big family had been.

The synagogue was an
alternative measure started by God to form a family of these people in
cities, so that they would have what they had back home when they were
together in families. The synagogue was started so God's people could have a
family even though they did not have a family.

6. The church became to New Testament Christianity
exactly what the family was to Old Testament Judaism.

It is an improvised family. God wants His people to have what
the old patriarchal families had, so He started a New Testament groupcalled the assembly, or ekklesia where His people could
gather and form a family.

Did you ever wonder why no rural churches are mentioned in
the Bible? Every church mentioned in the Bible was in the city. With the
breakdown of the family and with the coming of cities, God wanted a family
atmosphere for His people, so they could have the same thing they had when
they lived in the rural areas and all the families lived near each other.

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. Acts 2:42

That sounds like what Job's family did. Job's family got
together to have a feast and to have a service for God.

And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them
to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour
with all the people... Acts 2:45-47a

That sounds like family. The local church is exactly what
God intended to take the place of the Old Testament family. God wants his
people to get together and God wants his people to belong to a family. That
is what the church is to be. We must build our lives around the church. That
is what they did. Our children's activities ought to be centered around the
church and not the world. The same is true for our teenagers.

The church was not primarily started as a place where we
come to meet God. Nor was it primarily started as a place where we preach
the Gospel and get people saved. We are supposed to do that outside of the
church. The church was started so that God's people could get together and
have a family to encourage each other to be stronger. The church is to be as
close as the kinfolks were in the Old Testament because we are the
improvised Old Testament family.

That is why we call each other brothers and sisters. We
are in the same family unit, and that means we should be there every time
the doors are open. We are to support it with our tithe: We are to have our
fun through the church and educate our children through the church.

We are supposed to build our lives around the church.

God did not intend for the people in the Old Testament
days to spend all of their time at the meeting. They had crops to harvest,
and they had work to do at home, but they had regular meeting times.

The New Testament church is not the successor to the
Temple. The Temple was not a place where God's people came to learn in
fellowship.

The church is not the successor to the Tabernacle.

The church is the successor to the Old Testament family.

When they came together for their services they were so
glad to see each other. They shook hands and fellowshipped with one another.
That is what it was all about. The church is not a place where we come to
worship God. We can worship God much better alone with Him. The church is a
place to assemble as God's people so we will have a family. We must get born
again before we can join the church just as we must get born before we can
join a family.

What a wonderful institution the local church is! It is
the New Testament family.

Although we are in a church family, it is also important
that we train our own little family where we are. It was not the job of the
leader of the entire extended family to do all the training. Every little
local family unit was also supposed to do training. In our homes, we must
teach the Bible to our children, sing Gospel songs with our children, and
should praise God with our children. Then we come together as individual
units into a big family meeting just like Job's family did in his day.